Digitizer tablets are well known in the art. Reference is made to the January, 1989 issue of Byte Magazine, page 162-174, which describe different kinds of currently available digitizers. Most digitizers nowadays rely on room illumination as the light source for the tablet surface. There are however digitizer tablets known as surfacelit or backlit tablets. These are for the most part used, in a variety of sizes of active work areas, in applications requiring high resolution and superior accuracy, such as for accurate tracing of drawings and/or CAD or CAM applications. However, known surfacelit or backlit tablets tend to be expensive, bulky, and of heavy weight. There is thus a need in the art to provide a surfacelit or backlit digitizer which is of significantly smaller size and bulk and of reduced cost.
Known digitizer tablets frequently supply menu-picking capabilities. A menu template is placed over the tablet, the tablet switched into its menu-picking mode, and then the normal pointing device, typically a stylus, is used as a mouse to point to various menu items. The tablet electronics, when told it is in the menu-picking mode, typically uses software or a look-up table to associate the stylus location with the various menu items, and then branches to a subroutine to execute the user's choice. This, however, has the disadvantage that the user has to switch from normal tablet mode to the menu-picking mode in order to select a menu item. There is thus a need in the art for a digitizer tablet that can always be maintained in its normal mode, yet enable a user to make and execute a menu choice.